Patch 4.3.2 Will be Cataclysm's Last According to Dave Kosak

Dave Kosak, Blizzard's lead quest designer, gave a solid interview with Videogamer.com late last week. He highlighted 4.3's successes, failures, and also confirmed that there will be no extra content in the wings for Cataclysm--meaning anyone betting on a Ruby Sanctum styled encounter should stop while they're ahead.

In the interview, Kosak also touched on World of Warcraft's recent subscriber losses as well as Blizzard's overall feelings towards Cataclysm as an expansion. Although many have been disappointed with Cataclysm, he was quick to note the sheer level of content it brought to the world and how much of an epic undertaking that truly was for the World of Warcraft development team. Overhauling all those low level quests took massive amounts of time--and were desperately needed, whether players realize it or not.

While Cataclysm may not have been the highlight of WoW's timeline, it was a necessary one to prolong the life of Azeroth.Hit the break for a transcript of the full interview and let us know your thoughts on both the interview and the expansion. Was Cataclysm a good expansion? Should there have been another encounter after Deathwing? And, most importantly, what has been your favorite feature of 4.3?

VideoGamer.com

How has the response been to 4.3 so far?

Dave Kosak: So far I'm really happy with it. One of our big design experiments with this patch was the Raid Finder option and people are really taking to that. They are really having a good time with it. And the other thing I've been really happy with is we've added transmogrification in patch 4.3 and the community has really supported that. There's websites where you can browse all the different types of clothes your character can wear and make a shopping list then go out and explore the content. So I'm really happy with how the community has taken to that. So far great response.

What do you think the most successful aspect is?

DK: Right now? So far for me it seems to be Raid Finder. I know there are a lot of players that really wanted to see that content, and they really wanted to ramp up their character and then have a real challenge of fighting a raid boss but the logistics of getting together with a guild where everyone was available at the same time to raid – not everybody can do that. So Raid Finder opens up a whole lot of content for a whole lot of people and we definitely want to do it with this patch because it's our most epic raid fight we've ever done.Do you think this patch provides enough content to satiate the users in the period between this and Pandaria?

DK: Well, we've announced publicly that we're trying to speed up our cycle between expansions. So we're definitely working hard on that right now and I think that between the three excellent dungeons we have, the new raid, and Raid Finder that should give people something to sink their teeth into for a few months.

Have you seen any users actually re-subscribing to test out the new dungeons?

DK: I can't really talk about subscription numbers, we've definitely seen a lot of activity on the servers, for sure. We've definitely seen a lot of people checking it out.Games like Rift are taking a very workman-like position on churning out new content updates. Do you think you would be interested in coming out with more patch updates more often in a similar vein?

DK: I can tell you with this next expansion we're definitely looking at ways that we can roll out content in a better pace. Obviously we're looking closely at what other games have done in the past and what we're capable of doing in our own teams and trying to multitask and make that happen. Actually we have some pretty cool plans but unfortunately I can't talk about those! I'm excited because it's one of the things we're looking at: how to keep the game really active.

Thrall is a big part of Cataclysm. Do you see him continuing to be a major player in the game?

DK: He's definitely one of the main characters in Cataclysm, and certainly in many ways Cataclysm is his story. It starts with him setting down the hammer of the war chief of the Horde and passing that to Garrosh. We have a little bit of a love story going on there between both the Shattering and the events in the game in patch 4.2 and then ultimately he's a pivotal figure in saving the world here. But there's a lot of characters in World of Warcraft, so I'd like to especially – and this is something we've been talking about with our fans – really look at the Alliance characters. Trying to make sure they have a really big story as well. So definitely Cataclysm is really a story arc for Thrall and his story will continue for sure because there's a lot he's got to deal with now.

Are there any specific Alliance characters you'd like to take a look at?

DK: Certainly I think Varian Wrynn for the Alliance really needs to be the kind of character that players really look up to and see as a major world figure. And I think if you ask players right now, they don't quite see him that way yet. So we have a lot of work to do on that character I think. We just haven't had the opportunity in-game to explore that character the way that we've explored Thrall. You know, it's like Chris Metzen said, Thrall was barely in the game until an event in Burning Crusade where he had a little bit going on. So characters kind of come and go as we shine the spotlight around in different directions I think we definitely want to shine the spotlight on the Alliance in the upcoming expansion.In terms of the Alliance, the Worgen have gotten mounts. Was there any worry that that would look too comical?

DK: Well, our game has giant cow people and gnomes, rarely do we stop and say "Whoa! Too comical!". I think we try and just have feature sets that we think players want and that we enjoy. So there was definitely a demand for a Worgen mount. We have a lot of fun with World of Warcraft, we try not to take it too seriously, because we really want it to be a world that's alive and fun and has a lot of fun to it.Are you planning on bringing in any smaller patches between now and Pandaria?

DK: There's not a plan – 4.3 is definitely the climax of Cataclysm so there's no more Cataclysm content. Traditionally we've had a grace period where we patch the game before the expansion comes out and you get sort of mechanical changes before you get the new expansion content. So we'll have a world event prior to Mists of Pandaria, but that's mostly a part of Mists of Pandaria's launch and it's not really more Cataclysm content.Do you think that will incentivise users to continue subscribing to WoW between now and then?

DK: What we do is we always look at what's best for the game. You know, we're not tracking subscription numbers obsessively, we're just trying to make the best game we can. We've definitely said publicly that we're trying to roll out content at a faster pace, with a better schedule so players have more to do and it's certainly something we're looking at. And we think that's just good for the game, that's not a "Oh no we have to do this to keep subscribers!". It's a better game, it's the game we want to play and should have more frequent updates.Many users sadly unsubscribed to Cataclysm quite quickly. Do you think users will be more satisfied with Pandaria than they were with Cataclysm?

DK: For me Cataclysm, when we talk about the expansion, for me a lot of Cataclysm was the 1-60 re-design which was an epic amount of work. And I think we managed to pull that off in a time frame and we managed to do it and refresh the old world – that was a big part of Cataclysm. We're really happy with how that turned out!

Comments

Comment by thaedris20

on 2012-01-18T02:43:45-06:00

In the interview, Kosak also touched on World of Warcraft's recent subscriber losses as well as Blizzard's overall feelings towards Cataclysm as an expansion. Although many have been disappointed with Cataclysm, he was quick to note the sheer level of content it brought to the world and how much of an epic undertaking that truly was for the World of Warcraft development team. Overhauling all those low level quests took massive amounts of time--and were desperately needed, whether players realize it or not.

While Cataclysm may not have been the highlight of WoW's timeline, it was a necessary one to prolong the life of Azeroth.

I fully agree with this statement.

Certainly I think Varian Wrynn for the Alliance really needs to be the kind of character that players really look up to and see as a major world figure.

/groans......

why him? jesuschrist, he's just a warmongering idiot, almost as bad as Garrosh is, why must HE be given the spotlight? I'd very much rather they'd focus on cooler alliance characters like Muradin and Velen, :S

if they MUST focus on a human character, Anduin >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Varian.

I think it's a perfectly fine choice. He's definitely become less or an overaggressive being of hatred and one more of temperance.

Well i dont think a lot of people know that he went through the same trials as the worgen did to control his animal instincts besides theres more to him to why he hates orcs (mostly) than just to see them dead. though im suprised hes not more mad at humans than anything.

He also needs to step up now that Benedictus betrayed us.

Im all for them putting him in the spot light (with a model update hopefully) i also wish we could have a return of our dwarven king :( but not sure if we will see him for a while

Comment by Sweetscot

Blizz person " Weeeellll I can't say cata sucked so look at all this totally pointless waste of time and money we did in 1-60, doesn't that make up for making stuff that a whole bunch of people didn't like?"

Also, the only highlight I want to see for Varian is for him would be for him and Garrosh to kill each other. Maybe engage in hand to hand combat on an airship deck and crash it...and we get to see them both eaten by the Whale Shark.

Comment by Excelion

on 2012-01-18T04:50:06-06:00

There were a bit too many questions about subscriptions, when Dave clearly said it's a topic he can't talk about from the start. He's their quest designer, which is a pretty specific field to be working on. While the questions about Thrall and Varian were warranted, I think it would have been a good opportunity to prod him into asking what sorts of quests players enjoy doing, and asking if there's any special benefits for questing in MoP, as the quest rewards in Cata were quickly replaced by Heroic 346 gear.

I would have also had him talk about the successes of Tol Barad Peninsula as both a questing and PVP hub. There's no TB/WG type zone in MoP to my knowledge, and I'd like to see if he thinks we'll have more PVP-oriented questing hubs, perhaps with rewards that could be updated on a patch-by-patch basis. I would have loved to have a reason to go back to TBP and do dailies in 4.2 and 4.3. :)

Comment by Rankkor

Blizz person " Weeeellll I can't say cata sucked so look at all this totally pointless waste of time and money we did in 1-60, doesn't that make up for making stuff that a whole bunch of people didn't like?"

Also, the only highlight I want to see for Varian is for him would be for him and Garrosh to kill each other. Maybe engage in hand to hand combat on an airship deck and crash it...and we get to see them both eaten by the Whale Shark.

Agreed at the Underlined part, disagree at the bolded part.

1-60 IS an important part of the game, and one that BADLY needed to be freshed up.

As for the underlined part, I fully 100% endorse and support that statement.

Seriously, Varian is one of the most poorly written, annoying, pompous, self-righteous ASS of a character to have ever tainted a videogame ever. I find it unfair that with so many AWESOME characters in the alliance that could use some time in the spotlight, they have to focus precisely on HIM of all people. Muradin, and Velen by FAR deserve the fresh batch of attention FAR MORE than him.

Anduin is also a character with tons of potential, and him being crowned King of Stormwind would be one of the best things that could happen to the alliance.

Comment by Maelleous

on 2012-01-18T05:23:01-06:00

Well I sure hope you make this a bit more challegning. Seems like the material is getting a whole lot easier and there is not challege to the quest/dungon (normal/heroic)/raids,etc. I understand there is a bunch of new kids who is now playing this game but for the ones who have been around since vanillia WoW, it has turned an 180 and is going south. Sad to see and to say this but the devolopers is killing off this game thanks to the constant nerfing of all material. Its sad that the quest in Outlands (Mastery Quest in Nagrad) has been reduce to non elites with only 10k health. With all the heirlooms on there is no challege. So please for the old time gamers here (vanilla) stop screwing with the difficulty of the material and bring it back like what it used to be during vanilla WoW.

I'm not sure if you recall Cata released with "get a guild" level difficulty and they lost 2million subs... I think having harder content on the low ends is a horrible idea. They will have challenge modes and always heroic raids for people that need more of a challenge.

Comment by Alreadytaken

on 2012-01-18T06:47:31-06:00

Great read. He seems like the most reasonable Blizzard employee I've heard in a while.

We have a lot of fun with World of Warcraft, we try not to take it too seriously, because we really want it to be a world that's alive and fun and has a lot of fun to it.

Speaking for myself this is the single biggest way in which I think WoW has changed over the years. It used to strike a good balance between fun and serious. Now, it's all about the fun. The game just isn't as rich and deep as it used to be. The greatest disappointment in Cataclysm for me has been it's lack of enduring symbols. That's something that the old world did quite well. It was even ok in Wrath. But Cataclysm reads less like something by Urusla Le Guin and more like US magazine.

I completely agree. As I've said before this could have to do with Cataclysm not being able to follow the lore from Warcraft 3, as Lich King were the last piece of the puzzle. I'm desperately hoping for something along the lines of Burning Legion, especially with Sargeras as the bad guy because I think that part of the lore really has alot going for it. But unfortunately they might want to be saving that for last.

Comment by Azazel

on 2012-01-18T07:43:33-06:00

Didn't they say the wanted more patches for Cataclysm, just before it hit? And now it has less than wotlk lol.

Comment by Blevlitz

on 2012-01-18T08:08:57-06:00

I had hoped that there would be a little more content released before MoP but I guess not. I was firmly convinced the Darkmoon Faire would be turned into a nice daily hub with more games and fun stuff implemented, but GC kinda squashed that. This guy is saying no new content before MoP world event, so I can only hope it comes soon.

There is a small amount of QQ in this post, but mostly just a "Well that sucks" feeling. I'm not blaming anyone for anything and I'm not demanding anything be changed to satisfy me but well, it just sucks. I did sign up for the Annual Pass hoping there would be something more fun for me to play during my obligated subscription, I guess it just won't be WoW.

I love WoW and have played for several years. Recently, I've been playing SWTOR and enjoying that, all the while keeping WoW on the backburner, always ready to come back and enjoy some new content. I'm not clamoring for MoP, but I will definitly be back once it's here.

Comment by Kurasu

on 2012-01-18T08:42:21-06:00

I used to be a hardcore player, but an operation and then injury near the end of WOTLK put me *way* far behind the crowd. Trying to keep up with a guild who's surging ahead when you're on painkillers is a pain! So for me, Cataclysm was 99% about the solo stuff, or casual dungeoning. And I can say, without any irony, that when it comes to in-game *stuff*? Cataclysm has been my absolute favorite of the expansions. Period. A new world, where the old one used to be. New zones right there in the 'home' area. A fantastic PVP hub. Uldum... just... Uldum. Epic-feeling questlines that you could still do solo. All in all, Cataclysm was *anything* but a disappointment to me! It felt *amazing*.

I am sort of sad that I seem to be so far in the minority on this. :(

All that said, I'm happy that stuff will hopefully be released sooner, rather than later. I will feel sad for the lack of an intermediate raid (the way both BC and WotLK had), but all the same, I would much rather see a full-on release of the newest expansion than another patch to 'tide us over'. :)

As for characters I'd prefer to see expansions on, other than Wrynn... to be honest ,expanding on Wrynn could be interesting, if only to really explore his hatred. Garrosh, as well. Is he a terrible orc? Yes, but other than that, what is he *like*? Maybe I play too much Alliance, and thus don't really know his ins and outs. But I think exploration of the character could be good. I'd also love a lot of the recurring characters to get a little more time in the sun. Chromie got moved up in the world.

Comment by Hoofen

on 2012-01-18T09:12:28-06:00

First

Many users sadly unsubscribed to Cataclysm quite quickly. Do you think users will be more satisfied with Pandaria than they were with Cataclysm?

DK: For me Cataclysm, when we talk about the expansion, for me a lot of Cataclysm was the 1-60 re-design which was an epic amount of work. And I think we managed to pull that off in a time frame and we managed to do it and refresh the old world – that was a big part of Cataclysm. We're really happy with how that turned out!

I think it is sad that he totally avoided answering this question. For me personally, I have enjoyed Cata. I am an old style gamer and I enjoyed the difficulty of early Cata content. Sadly WotLK created an entire community of lazy gamers that expected to just breeze through content and when Cata went live they got a wake up call. I remember reading so many forum posts about how content was so hard and bleh bleh bleh. I saw this in my guild. We were clearing ICC when Cata launched and guys that were so used to walking over content got so mad when they had a hard time making it through normal dungeons let alone heroics that they said the heck with it and quit playing.

I am not saying that they should go back to the WotLK style of content (sadly I did read somewhere that this is exactly what they are planning on doing) but I do believe that in order for them to not get the same type of reaction with Mists that they got with Cata they truly need to make sure more people have more things to do to keep them excited about the game. So far from what I have read about Mists it appears they are trying to do that very thing.

I hope it works but back to my origional point. You would think he would be happy to answer the question with a resounding YES they will be more satisfied with Pandaria then they were with Cataclysm. Even if it is not true (and I am not trying to say that it will or wont be that way) the more people hear something the more they will believe it.

Second

Do you think this patch provides enough content to satiate the users in the period between this and Pandaria?

DK: Well, we've announced publicly that we're trying to speed up our cycle between expansions. So we're definitely working hard on that right now and I think that between the three excellent dungeons we have, the new raid, and Raid Finder that should give people something to sink their teeth into for a few months.

Again, I think he should have given a better responce. Does he mean that that Mists will be launcing sooner then the normal November release time frame? Or, does he actually believe that 4.3 has enough content in it to keep people busy for the next 11 months? To me that does not seem very logical. I keep reading about the "Event" that will lead up to the launch of Mists. This event may be large enough to keep people busy but with no "Sunwell-Ruby Sanctum" style content patch I think the game will lose even more peopel to other games that are releasing new content.

These are just my opinions and you never know what they will throw at us before Mists goes live!

Comment by Arikara

on 2012-01-18T10:26:10-06:00

It'd have been nice if we got to stab N'Zoth, too. Another time, perhaps.

Comment by jimjimjim

on 2012-01-18T10:38:37-06:00

I don't know about faster content releases, at least in respect to raids. They put a lot of work into Ulduar then quickly pushed out ToC before hardly anyone got through Ulduar. The item levels of ToC insured no one wanted to hit Ulduar again. I'd rather see them put more effort into keeping the content interesting for longer than obsoleting it quicker. (edit: Especially if the thing doing obsoleting *cough-ToC-cough* isn't all that interesting.)

Also in the haste to push out newer content faster they seem to be more sluggish than ever to address bugs and balance adjustments. Will they ever manage to fix Inscription's inability to learn glyphs? It's a bit silly that the problem lasted for the duration of an entire expansion pack. There's lots of other stuffs in the same boat. I won't go into them but I don't see that rushing things really leads to a better game.

Cataclysm has an epic story, but Wrath was more fun to play in may respects. I'm not sure how having a great story arc leads to less fun game mechanics but it seems to be the way it goes.

Comment by Nukillis

To paraphrase, the question simply asked "Will MoP be better than Cata?" and he says "Oh I loved the new 1-60 stuff in Cata it was t3h best!11!11"

Like, seriously? I've got a lot of love for the quests in this game like he apparently does, but that's not what we're asking, Dave.

Comment by kickthecat

on 2012-01-18T12:20:29-06:00

Overhauling all those low level quests took massive amounts of time--and were desperately needed, whether players realize it or not.

This is a blatant lie

1) 3 zones almost totally untouched 2) Many old quests simply changed objective (number of q items/mobs, start/end point wise or place)3) One zone suffered 2, and just added 'worgen flavour'. Guess which is it?4) Several zones have no story tie in with the expansion and just abruptly end

Some of the 'reworks' takes about 10 mins of work to finish, see Arathi Highlands as a example for the total lack of change and story tie in

Pretty sure the resources allocated for this task were not adequate or they overran the time they had

Comment by lynxravenraide

on 2012-01-18T12:33:02-06:00

Cue the QQing in the forum from the Alliance side now that the sacking of Theramore, possibly the real major Alliance storyline from, as they put it, a Horde-dominated expansion, gets trashed.

I actually have a feeling we may see one more 4.x patch before MoP. MoP will be delayed for some reason or other ;)

Comment by RegiRuler

on 2012-01-18T13:06:58-06:00

It'd have been nice if we got to stab N'Zoth, too. Another time, perhaps.

They had the perfect set-up too. They could resolve the whereabouts of Neptulon, and the aspects are mortal now, giving N'Zoth little opposition.

Comment by 653seth

on 2012-01-18T13:58:52-06:00

By four means it will be released 2 weeks before Christmas. :)

Comment by DivineIxen

on 2012-01-18T14:16:41-06:00

Better, yet can we PLEASE have Alleria and Turalyon back as Alliance heroes? I'm sure that would boost Alliance pride a lot...and Varian is not seen as a great leader because he's viewed the same as Garrosh: A guy who would rather solve problems by going "DERP I SWING MY SWORD" rather then use his brain.

:< And no people Tirion can't be an Alliance leader as he's technically the leader of a neutral faction now.

Comment by OverZealous

on 2012-01-18T14:32:21-06:00

Well I sure hope you make this a bit more challegning. Seems like the material is getting a whole lot easier and there is not challege to the quest/dungon (normal/heroic)/raids,etc. I understand there is a bunch of new kids who is now playing this game but for the ones who have been around since vanillia WoW, it has turned an 180 and is going south. Sad to see and to say this but the devolopers is killing off this game thanks to the constant nerfing of all material. Its sad that the quest in Outlands (Mastery Quest in Nagrad) has been reduce to non elites with only 10k health. With all the heirlooms on there is no challege. So please for the old time gamers here (vanilla) stop screwing with the difficulty of the material and bring it back like what it used to be during vanilla WoW.

Please link your Deathwing: Heroic achievement, or refer from making statements on the game being too easy.

Comment by Lolus

on 2012-01-18T14:54:20-06:00

Many users sadly unsubscribed to Cataclysm quite quickly. Do you think users will be more satisfied with Pandaria than they were with Cataclysm?

DK: For me Cataclysm, when we talk about the expansion, for me a lot of Cataclysm was the 1-60 re-design which was an epic amount of work. And I think we managed to pull that off in a time frame and we managed to do it and refresh the old world – that was a big part of Cataclysm. We're really happy with how that turned out!